Swiss voters block right-wing bid to slash public broadcaster funding

Swiss voters rejected a right-wing initiative to sharply reduce the licence fee that funds the national broadcaster, blocking a proposed cut from 335 Swiss francs to 200 francs and preserving funding for radio and television services in the country’s four official languages. Early projections showed about 62 percent opposed and 38 percent in favour, with turnout near 56 percent.

The referendum, driven by the Swiss People’s Party and backed by trade and youth groups, would also have exempted businesses from the fee. Supporters argued the charge was too high amid a cost of living squeeze and painted the broadcaster as bloated and politically biased. Opponents, including the federal government and all other parliamentary parties, said the fee is essential to maintain news, sports and cultural coverage, protect reporting in German, French, Italian and Romansch, and guard against disinformation.

Campaign imagery made the stakes visible to voters. One poster for the Yes campaign carried the slogan 200 francs is enough, while a No poster showed a microphone and warned that cuts would destroy the broadcaster. Proponents argued the licence cost was the highest in the world and that 200 francs would ease household burdens. Susanne Brunner, a committee member leading the campaign to cut the fee, said the committee’s focus was "to reduce the SBC licence fee to 200 Swiss francs, to ease the burden on households and businesses."

Opponents pushed a different frame, warning that reductions would hollow out foreign news and sports coverage and narrow the broadcaster’s capacity to serve Switzerland’s linguistic regions. Voters also weighed concerns about information integrity: critics said weaker public media could leave space for disinformation, a concern sharpened by recent attempts to influence Swiss debate from abroad.

Political analysts described the result as a clear rebuke to the initiative’s backers. Lukas Golder of gfs.bern said, "The outcome is a victory for the Swiss government. Voters followed them on all national vote issues," adding, "It’s a sign of trust." The city vote carried particular weight in the outcome, with higher urban turnout favouring preservation of the fee.

The national broadcaster, variously referred to as SRG or SBC, runs multiple radio stations and television channels across languages and receives roughly half its funding from the household licence. Voters rejected the proposed steep cut even as the government had already announced an administrative plan to lower the fee to CHF 300 by 2029 and expand exemptions for some companies; that plan remains on track.

The ballot day also included other measures. Voters backed a government counter-proposal to enshrine the availability of cash, with projections putting support near 70 to 73 percent, while proposals such as a climate fund were rejected in preliminary tallies. A voice identified only as Molina argued that "people understand the cost of living crisis will not be resolved by cutting a relatively small fee that each household has to pay just once a year."

The result leaves Switzerland’s public broadcasting model intact for now and preserves the funding that supports multilingual programming and national reporting, while underlining the limits of a right-wing drive to reconfigure public media financing in the face of broad electoral resistance.